That 70s Movie Podcast
A look back at the films that defined cinema's greatest era - the 1970s!
That 70s Movie Podcast
The Pledge
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APOLOGIES FOR THE PROBLEMS WITH THE EARLIER AUDIO. EVERYTHING IS FIXED NOW, AND THE ENTIRE EPISODE IS LIVE!!!
This week on That '70s Movie Podcast, Jonathan and Michael go fishing for the 2001 neo-noir thriller, The Pledge.
One of the podcast's founding credos is that not every '70s film was made in the 1970s—and few modern movies embody the ethos of '70s filmmaking quite like "The Pledge." Moral ambiguity, a flawed male protagonist, and a decidedly bleak ending ... The Pledge has it all!
We were particularly impressed by Jack Nicholson's restrained, against-type performance, but disagreed on his motivation and the reasons for his descent into madness. However, we agreed on Sean Penn's deft direction and brilliant visual storytelling, and loved the film's wonderful cameo performances, from Helen Mirren and Vanessa Redgrave to Mickey Rourke and Harry Dean Stanton.
So grab a bottle of Glenfiddich, keep your eyes out for porcupines, and join us for this week's episode of That '70s Movie Podcast.
Don't forget to leave a comment, subscribe to the podcast, and buy us a cup of coffee.
By your soul salvation by your soul salvation on this cross made by the hands of our daughter Yes My Soul Salvation You've sworn by your salvation We will pray.
SPEAKER_01Welcome everybody to this episode of That Seventies Movie Podcast. I'm your host, Michael A. Cohen, joined by my co-host, Jonathan Kirschner, Jonathan, Shanachova, and how are you doing today?
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, two weeks into the new semester, I feel like I'm more than two weeks behind, which should be mathematically impossible, but nevertheless, that's how I feel.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well, you know, it's that's sort of part for the course. Uh, this is my first week back, and it's good to be back in normalcy again and have the kids back in school. Had a lovely um Rosh Hashanah and an interesting, uh sobering anniversary on 9-11 on Friday. This was a tougher one than usual, 25th anniversary. So I'm sort of glad to be beyond that at this point.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that's uh that that is a good thing. It's it was a strange one uh for me. I was much more involved in some of the other anniversaries. Whereas this one, actually, although because I'm not in town, I I live in of elsewhere, uh it seemed a little different.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, it's interesting. You know, I've lived in New York for since 9-11. Before 9-11, I moved here. And um as years have gone on, you sort of the the anniversary has sort of lost some of its significance. I don't think it has sort of the same emotional connection. Something about a big round number, I guess, 25. And uh, but I'm I was struck by how many people I talked to who felt the same way. Like this anniversary was different for some reason. But it is what it is, and now we move on to other things. All right, so before we get into today's movie, Jonathan, have you seen anything good recently?
SPEAKER_00A couple of movies worth noting. There's a 2025 Spanish film called Romeria that I recently caught up with about a young woman who is searching for her the or engaging with her birth family. She's adopted, she's not searching for her birth parents, she knows where they are, but she has reason to re-engage with her birth family, and so it's about her journey and experience uh in in that search. I thought it was very good, uh, an excellent first performance and and nicely directed. And then also I just saw for the first time David Cronenberg's A History of Violence. I had mixed feelings about Cronenberg because he's a little gruesome for me in general, but I did really like his recent film, The Shrouds, and so I've been kind of dipping into his work now and then. And I thought this was actually quite excellent, to my surprise, I must say.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm not a huge Cronenberg guy, but I thought that movie was quite good. I thought that was one of Vigo Mortensen's better performances. Um, it's an interesting movie. He's a little yeah, he's a little too gruesome for my taste.
SPEAKER_00I I did squirm a little bit as to whether he was he was allowing the audience to get visceral thrills from the violence that was shown. I felt it a little bit myself and it got my guard up a little bit. But I decided it was Cronenberg, I'm taking him seriously, and that he was trying to confront us with our feelings about those moments in the film.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, um I I again I saw it a long time ago, but I remember being uh impressed by it. But as somebody who has, as you said, I'm not a huge fan of his work. It's not some, he's not he's not a go-to director for me. I'm not somebody into horror films, which is an interesting segue for a movie that I saw uh this past week, which is the 2002 French movie by Gaspar No called Irreversible. Have you seen this movie? I have not. Um I think Okay. That's probably for the better, actually. Although this is one of the most difficult movies I think I've ever seen. And I I don't mean that as um difficult as far as as squirm-inducing and uh unpleasant to to witness. And so this is a very sort of infamous film starring Monica Bellucci and her husband um Cassell. What is his first name? Victor Cassell, is that his name? Vincent, maybe. Vincent Cassell, sorry. Um and in this movie, um it's told in reverse and the the sort of the centerpiece of the movie, if you will, is a 10-minute um rape scene in which Monica Bellucci is assaulted. Um this is a really hard movie to sit through, and a part of me kind of hates movies like this and hates movies that really uh are so uh so over the top violent and unpleasant. But this movie actually I thought kind of worked, um, even with that that the terrible violence, in part because the story is told in reverse. It's a revenge story in which the revenge happens at the beginning of the movie, and you go back in time to what happens before. And the movie opens with this almost like lovely scene between Bellucci and Cassell, who are married at the time, uh, in sort of in love, romantic, sort of um frolicking naked in bed. It's such an interesting contrast with what happens in the rest of the film. I I still don't even know what I think about it. I'm curious if people who are listening today who watch this film, what they think about it. It's a movie that um that I don't recommend for the for the for the faded heart because as I said, the rape scene is just awful. And what's interesting about the rape scene is that basically the camera is set up, it's one long shot. And most of it's basically set in 14 different vignettes, all of them done in in one long shot. And so this scene is done as one long shot. The camera doesn't move and it shows the rape, and it is horrific, and it and at times I just couldn't, I couldn't, I had to look away, I couldn't watch. Um, but it is uh it sort of forces you to uh, as you mentioned about history of violence, just think about the violence that occurs in a rape like this and and consider the consequences of it. Um it it's uh it's an interesting movie. I I'm not again, I'm not sure what I think about it. I'm curious what others have to might say, but it is it is one that has stuck with me for a week or so since I saw it.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I've I've seen a couple of his pictures, and while they didn't really sing for me, I could tell that he was an ambitious and transgressive filmmaker, which I appreciate. And so I'm not sure I would really like this one, but I I I applaud the efforts along the way.
SPEAKER_01I I think I don't know that you would love this film. I don't think you would love it. I mean, again, as I said, you have to go in a sit-through. It's not just, by the way, that awful scene. There's an awful scene in the beginning of the film with the revenge, actually, um, that is also very difficult to sit through. Uh, but it is um it is an interesting, an interesting thought-compelling film. And one, again, as I said, like a lot of films like that, I tend to just recoil it and I hate them. I remember Surat, a movie I saw last year that I absolutely despised, which had a a lot of really horrific violence, which felt like the violence was there more for shock value than for substance or storytelling. This movie felt a little bit different uh as far as the shock moment of the film.
SPEAKER_00Yes, as always, I'm a case-by-case person on this. The Isabelle Houpaire film, uh, Elle opens with a shocking and extended rape scene, and I think that's actually a brilliant and transgressive movie.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think you can make things that are unpleasant to witness, unpleasant to watch, and still, you know, be great cinema, obviously. Um, I also want to mention something, a bit of a uh this is just a reference to last week's episode of Mean Streets. Uh, the actor who played Mike was named uh Richard Romanis. I've been re-watching The Sopranos with my girlfriend, and we were watching uh season three and the very famous episode in which Dr. Melfi is assaulted, sexually assaulted, and she is with her ex-husband. And I realized, as watching this, that her ex-husband is the same character, same actor who played Mikey in Mean Streets, Richard Romanis. So I thought that was kind of an odd uh um coincidence that just happened to be after we watched Mean Street, if we saw him. I was also struck by the fact that in Mean Streets he plays an Italian uh uh you know mobster. In The Sopranos, he plays Melfi's ex-husband, who is actually also this kind of uh voice for Italian Americans, always speaking up for them. So I looked up Richard Romanes, turns out he's Greek.
unknownFun fact.
SPEAKER_01Uh Mediterranean. I was gonna say it is the Hollywood's uh uh um quirk of casting Mediterranean uh uh individuals in everywhere across the sea. You could be Jewish and you could play Italian, you could be Italian, you could play Jewish, Greek, Italian, what have you. That's that's just sort of the way it goes. Um and uh let's get on to today's movie. So today we're talking about the 2001 uh neo-nawar crime thriller, The Pledge, about a retiring police detective who becomes obsessed with the murder of a young girl, and chaos ensues. It's directed by Sean Penn, screenplay by Jerzy Kremelowski and Mary Olson Kremelowski, based on the 1958 novella The Pledge by Friedrich Durenmott, cinematography by Chris Menges, edited by J. Lash Casty, music by Klaus Bedel, and Hans Zimmer. Who's in it? Better question, who's not in it? This is the star-studded cast. First of all, if we have Jack Nicholson, also Patricia Clarkson, Benicio del Toro, Aaron Eckhart, Helen Miren, Tom Noonan, Robin Wright Penn, Vanessa Redgrave, Mickey Rourke, Sam Shepherd, Lois Smith, Harry Dean Stanton, Michael O. Keefe. My God, is that a cast of characters? Um, let's see, what else can we say? Oh, it was not nominated for any Academy Awards. It is not on any of the um lists we talk about here, the AFI list, the BFI list, best movies 1970s, because it came out in 2001. So, with that introduction, uh Jonathan did come to the most important part of the podcast. The pledge. Is this a good movie? Is this a bad movie?
SPEAKER_00Or is this a great movie? You know, I'm a little stiny to give a one-word answer here, although that's often the case, uh, because I lean great, and yet something something in me reaches for nearly great. I had the exact same thought.
SPEAKER_01That is so interesting. Exactly what I felt. It is so close to being great, but I don't quite think it is great. However, we could agree it's excellent. It's really good.
SPEAKER_00It's a heck of a movie. I I I was very, very pleased to see it again.
SPEAKER_01So the obvious question that we need to get to first and foremost here is why we talk about a movie that was released in 2001 on a podcast devoted to the 1970s. So, Jonathan, I'm going to turn that over to you.
SPEAKER_00Well, we've done this before and under the uh moniker of 70s not 70s, which is you know, that there are 70s type movies that were not necessarily made in the 70s. And this is an example of that. Boy, oh boy, is this a 70s film. In fact, uh, you know, as someone who who revels in the entire 70s ambiance, for me, if anything, this was almost too much 70s. Uh I mean, it almost out 70s the 70s. It's it's astonishing. And of course, it's not by accident. Penn clearly, you know, cuts his teeth on the same cinema that we talked about, and he chooses to work with Nicholson similarly for that reason. This is not stunt casting in any way. Both Penn and Nicholson had to scale back, you know, their their pay just to get this movie made as every single studio in the history of the world turned down this relentlessly non-commercial film, which of course we also appreciate uh as having a part of that 70s ethos. That we make this movie, or the people who made this movie made this movie because they really wanted to make this movie, not because they thought they would make a ton of money, which is good because I don't think they did.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't think they made very much money with this film. And it is um I really wanted to do this film for a while uh because we talked about we have perennial conversations offline about what film we're gonna do next, and we talked about non-70s films, and this is one I kept coming back to because even though I think this movie, as we said a second ago, is not quite great, it's very close, but it's a movie that really does, I think, uh reflect the ethos of 70s filmmaking. It's incredibly morally ambiguous. The ending is beyond bleak. Uh the there is a plot, but it is of secondary importance to the character story. I don't want to go plot schmott because the plot actually is important. Right. But this is a character study, first and foremost. Um, and also it does feature uh an actor who is, let's be honest, one of the best actors of the 1970s uh in 2001. So before we get too deep into the film, let's take a second to talk about Jack Nicholson. Now, I want to mention that uh in a review of this film done by Roger Ebert, his second review, his first review gives three and a half stars, second review, he gave it four stars, and he said this might be Nicholson's best performance as an actor. Now that is a strong, strong statement. But I think we both agree this is a phenomenal Jack Nicholson performance, and one that I think ranks up with some of the best work he's ever done.
SPEAKER_00Yes, better phrase, you know me, I hate to do best of. But exactly it's it's up there with his great performances, uh, which is really nice because it's 2001. And when Jack became, you know, a big famous movie star, a lot of the choices he made were for paychecks, even though he was always and everywhere, you know, a a brilliant, brilliant actor. But here he's really, you know, he did a half dozen, maybe ten pictures after the 70s, in which he brought his brilliant 70s capabilities to bear on a role and a film, and this is one of them, and so we we treasure those uh because they they were intermittent.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know what's interesting? Do you know the movie he made before now he did not move did not do a movie for four years uh before he made this film? But do you know the film he made before this? Can you guess?
SPEAKER_00I I not offhand. Uh a made what was it, The Witches of Eastwick or something?
SPEAKER_01No, it was As Good as It Gets, a movie that I detested, and yet that movie did win him uh, I think his third uh Oscar uh award for best actor.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, strangely enough, I I've never seen that one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's hard to believe, right? Uh he has won uh I think three Academy Awards, one for one flew The Cuckoo's Nest, and the uh second for this, and the third for another movie I absolutely despise, which is turns of endearment. Um but I bring this up because I think I interesting about Nicholson is that his later film career, uh, he didn't work as much as he did, obviously, in younger days. He was still, you know, I say it but guessing his he's still live today, of course. I think he was in his 60s at this point. Um he did this movie, The Pledge, then he did uh 2002 movie called about Schmidt, which he also got an Oscar nomination for, though he didn't win. Uh, and then he did a couple of a comedy called Anger Management, something's got to give, and then three years later he did The Departed.
SPEAKER_00Uh See, but you know, anger management. That's what I'm talking about. We got to go through a lot of anger management, which I have not seen uh to get to the movies that we revere. And and as I'm saying that, let me apologize to As Good As It Gets. I believe he co-starred with Helen Hunt in that film. I haven't seen it. I take her very seriously as an actor. I think she's very talented. So, you know, sometimes they make movies uh to be, you know, commercial hits, and uh I, you know, people have to pay bills. I have no problem with that.
SPEAKER_01I just don't have to go to the theater and see them. I'm not a huge Helen Hunt fan, to be honest. And I think I think she might have won Best Oscar for that. I know that movie won, I think that movie won Best Picture that year. I really didn't like that movie. And um Yeah, I'm in no position to judge. No position to judge. But I but I bring this up because he did, so he did this movie, The Pledge, and then he did 2002 about Schmidt, which I think actually is one of his best performances. I think actually even better than The Pledge. I think that's that movie is a tour de force. And what what is interesting about both of these films is that they really do show an actor going against type. And this is an argument I've made here many times in the past that I think you know actors tend to be the most interesting, especially big stars, when they go against type. I mean, I think the classic example of this to me is um uh Humphrey Bogar, Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I love when characters do that and they have the guts to do it. And for Nicholson to do this so late in his career, I think is really interesting. I think it shows an actor who was still trying to um explore his craft and still trying to make interesting and compelling films with interesting performances that were not what people expected of him. Now, of course, there were movies that he did do that were more to type, and I'm thinking of A Few Good Men and then uh 2006 The Departed, where I mean the budget for scenery that Nicholson ate must have been in the millions of dollars for that film. I don't hate that film, I know you don't like it. Um I do not. Yeah, I know you don't. And I don't blame you. It's not a great film, but his performance is so over the top, um, it's a little bit ridiculous. But, you know, I I think, again, as I said before, I think the interesting about about this movie and about Schmidt, some of his other later work is that he showed himself to be an actor willing to take chances. And what is it about this performance for you, for Nicholson, that that is so effective?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think you've already touched on the fact that not only does it play against type, I mean, I don't think we ever get classic Jack in this picture. I don't think maybe like a minute. It does a minute. Slip out. Yeah. I want to talk a bit about an earlier Penn Nicholson collaboration in The Crossing Guard, and that picture I love and you're meh on, but I do want to talk about it a little bit. But in that movie, you get you get pieces of classic Jack that 100% peak out. Whereas in The Pledge, this is very straight, very subdued, and you know, you like it when when actors play against hype. I like it when big actors play small, and he's definitely playing small here. There's no real major confrontational scene in this movie, is there?
SPEAKER_01The only one that I when I thought to myself, that's Jack Nicholson, was the scene when he goes to meet with Sam Shepherd and Aaron Eckhart uh in the police station and tells him you know the reason why he thinks that this murder investigation should be reopened. And he gets kind of angry at Sam Shepard. And then I think you see the old that the sort of the classic Nicholson anger and frustration and and visceral sort of acting that he can do. That's as close as it comes, but it's as close as it comes.
SPEAKER_00It's not you can't handle the truths. No, no, no, no, no. No. No. And also he's in such a position of structural weakness in that conversation that there's the frustration there is partially because of his institutional incompetence at that point. Aaron Powell Yes, exactly. Aaron Ross Powell I mean impotence, not incompetence. Well, both, right? Aaron Ross Powell Yeah. No, I I I mean I m maybe both, but I meant to say impotence, that he is so impotence, but the institutional incompetence. Yes. His impotence within the context of the institution at that time is where and he's so weak in that context that even though he does we see the Jack frustration, it's not the same kind of confident uh and confrontational, you know, I will I will bend you by the will of my passion type jack.
SPEAKER_01Right. Which is, I think, in as you mentioned, the crossing guard, that is much more a feature of that film. Now, Crossing Guard also directed by Sean Penn. Yeah. Sean Penn did uh three films, kind of one after the other, I guess over actually not really over a 10-year period.
SPEAKER_00I think the only three he's directed. Am I right in thinking that? No, there's a fourth. Um I believe it's Into the Wild.
SPEAKER_01Oh, Into the Wild. Into the Wild he did. Yeah, that came later. Um so the three that I was thinking we have the uh Crossing Guard. Before that, we have The Pledge. I'm sorry, after that is the Pledge, and before that is Indian Runner, which I just finished watching, which I think, by the way, is is an excellent film. I really enjoyed it. Um great performance by Vigo Mortensen in that movie. Um and that was the first, I think, thing he directed.
SPEAKER_00I believe so.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And you can see, I think, in this film, and see in all three of those films, that Sean Penn clearly has a great reverence for um 1970s filmmakers. In fact, at the end of uh Indian Runner, there's a point when he he thanks Hal Ashby, another director I'm forgetting now, and John Cassavetti's. So we can get a little sense of Penn's very nice influence. Um what influenced him at least to make this movie and to make all three of those films.
SPEAKER_00Um so let's see. Let look go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, no, I just want to Wax poetically briefly about the crossing guard, I think that's the most Cassavetti's inflected of these of his pictures. And I just want to pause and I know that for many he is a lightning rod figure, but Penn's career as an actor and a director, I really have tremendous admiration for. And those of you who don't think he can stretch to an actor, I think I've mentioned this in the podcast before, but check out the miniseries Gaslet, in which he plays John Mitchell opposite Julia Roberts, who plays Martha Mitchell. It's a really good mini-series, but the i he becomes John Mitchell. It's mind-boggling. If you don't know it's Sean Penn, I don't think you would know it was Sean Penn. I I think the work there is remarkable. And then you have a very broad range of performances, some of which are indeed stunning, but then he also has this ambition as a director to make pictures that obviously are meaningful to him. And we can we can circle back to the crossing guard at some point, but I am going to want to wax enthusiastic about that as well. Trevor Burrus, Jr. No, that's fine.
SPEAKER_01And I just want to say all three of these movies, Indian Runner, Crossing Guard, and Plush, none of them did very well at the box office. They are not, they were not big hits for Jean Penn or for the studios. But I think it does show a commitment to making films that go against the grain. And I think you can say the same thing about his acting career. This might be a slightly inapt comparison, but he didn't go the Nicolas Cage route, which was uh an actor who has taken on a lot of uh roles in not great movies, um, in part, I think, just for the paycheck. Uh he became a movie star as far as a film actor. I think Sean Penn has always remained a film actor. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00No, I think that comparison is exactly right. These two young These two young actors came on the scene at exactly the same time. I think they appeared in a couple of films together, actually, and they were recognized as kind of the bright and hopeful lights of a new generation. And, you know, as you already said, Cage decided he'd rather be a movie star. But he, because he could have been, had he chosen a different path, one of the great actors of his generation. And, you know, my one of my pet peeves is when people, in my view, squander their talent.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a fair, that's a fair point. Although I will say, just and and this is a total aside here, but uh Nicholas Cage's movie a couple years ago called Pig, that is an excellent movie, a small movie where he just really focuses on being an actor and not so much being a movie star. And uh it's it's great performance. So I think you would like it, actually. I think you should check it out. Um okay, so to back to the movie we're talking about today. Uh sorry, we've got a little far afield here. So, how does this movie begin? Uh, it tells a story of Jerry Black, played by Jack Nicholson, who um is retiring. He is a police detective in Reno, Nevada. He is retiring. He goes to his going-away party at a Hawaiian-styled um uh nightclub. I thought it was an odd choice. I don't know why they did that, but it was interesting. Anyway, uh, as this celebration is going on, as he is being honored, as they are saying goodbye to him, uh, all the detectives scurry about because there has been a body has been found of a seven-year-old girl. Now, at this point, again, Jerry is retiring. He's preparing to go to on a on a fishing trip, I think, to Mexico. And he asks, though, to go be involved with the investigation. I think this is a crucial decision in the movie. And just before we get to that point, I'll just say he goes to the crime scene, and this leads to the but basically ends up being the heart of this movie, which is him trying to solve a murder that everyone else thinks has been solved. So I think uh do you want to interject here? I think I probably said too much already.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I just want to say that the whole sequence here is just so beautifully done. And this is a very maturely directed film, I thought. Again, I'm gonna praise the crossing guard, but I think the directing work here is just a clear step ahead of the work done in that earlier picture. And so the murder or the not that we don't see the murder, the finding of the little girl's body and the retirement party are interspersed with each other in a way that I thought was extremely uh well done. And then Jack, you know, he's he doesn't really want to be at this party. And once a cop or always a cop, he can tell that his peers have somehow gotten wind of an interesting crime. And so he, as you mentioned, he abandons his retirement party to go to the crime scene and he goes there. It's very beautiful. The the um environment of the film is quite special in that you can go from snow to warmth uh because of the the the pot the topology of the region, and so in the the crime scene is snowbound, and you see very quickly uh Nicholson's professionalism, especially in contrast with the local cops, and you have one of the world's most horrific crimes, obviously, the death of a child, and it's probably the work of a serial killer.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Um Right.
SPEAKER_01And so it's interesting, you know, um uh I think this moment where he decides to leave his party is actually the key inflection point in the movie and tells us all we need to know about this character. And just a step back, before he gets to the party, we the this the movie opens with him Well, I should say the movie opens actually with the end the end of the movie of him like sort of deranged, losing his mind, uh talking to himself. That's the that happened. The end of the movie also is the opening of the movie.
SPEAKER_00And then we go to Now I'm gonna interrupt you here, as I often do, and say when you see this movie for the first time, you don't understand that the opening scene is the last scene. How could you? And it has so much more power, at least it did for me, the the on repeated viewings when you see that the movie is opening with that, it and and then it cuts back to this. It I I found it, you know, extremely powerful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I saw the movie a long time ago, so it's hard for me to remember what I would think at the time, but it's not obvious at the opening that you're seeing something from the future. Right? You don't know that that's you don't really know that. But what you do, I mean you can get a sense you get a s a hint of it because in the the opening, which is that again in in the future, he is he looks um uh disheveled, yes, his hair is he is all amuck, he's drinking, he's talking to himself, he looks like a crazy person. Yes, right? Somebody you might you might see in the street, you know, having a conversation with themselves. So that is a rather disturbing opening. And then you go to this shot of what is I think they're I think I forget what they're called. I think they're like shacks on ice where people go ice fishing. Yeah. Jerry Black character, he's a big fisherman. And uh in this scene, he is ice fishing, and you see a fish in the water, and you see him also drinking Scosh Glenn Fiddlech directly from the bottle. So it gives you a sense that he is he is a a lonely guy, a guy who is focused on his obsessively, you might say, on his hobbies, on his passions. Yeah. But he's also probably an alcoholic. Then he drives to the party, uh, he goes to his office where he uh looks around his office. And it's interesting, I think, the sh the scene here. He's looking at all these pictures of himself when he was in the uh, I guess in the Marines or in the military in Vietnam, I'm assuming. Um, a shot of him as a as a police detective or police officer. Um it's like looking at pictures of him in the past, but all those pictures in the past, he is, in a sense, of service. He's doing something where he is needed, where he is trying, you know, he is it's not he's not just work doing something for himself, he's doing something for somebody else. And I think that is an important setup for the film. He also looks out the window and sees an old person uh walking on a walker, which I think is also telling because it's a sense of where his he thinks his life might be going. Yes. No wasted shot. No wasted shot. Then he goes to the party. There's a great shot in the party of all the people around him dancing, having a good time. The great shot of Aaron Eckhart, uh, who's like really getting into this party and really getting down. And Jerry looks like he doesn't even want to be there. Even though, again, it is his party. It isn't to honor him. And again, it just shows you this is not a guy who looks like he can have a good time, unless he's drinking and going ice fishing. And so then he goes out to deal with the crime. You mentioned that. And that leads to uh this scene where he ends up being the person who is tasked with notifying the family, the parents of the little girl who was killed. I know you love this shot, so I'm just gonna let you talk a little bit about this.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell I love this shot. So, you know, the the the bumbling local cops have hemmed and hard to decide they don't feel like telling the parents about this. He'd rather not do it, is what they say, I believe. So he kind of, as the expression goes, mans up and and goes to where they live, and it seems to be a poultry farm. And the scene is handled so beautifully because you're making your way through this kind of sea of young chicks of some sort. I think they're turkeys, aren't they? Yeah, I think turkeys is true. Yeah. I I, you know, I'm uh I'm not an expert in this area, but but my guess was turkeys. But it is so impressively shot, and obviously, I think it's um who was the DP? I've already forgotten his name. Uh Chris Chris Mangus. Chris Mangus. You know, obviously this movie is very beautifully shot, and he must have had a hand on that. He also shot The Killing Fields, which is an astonishingly beautifully shot film, even if it's a little the Sam Watterson film? Yeah. Yeah, that's a great film. Yeah. Yes. And in any event, this is handled so well. First of all, it's beautiful, and second of all, it's tasteful. It's a long shot, and it's largely silent. And Nicholson approaches the family, and we don't hear what he says, but we know what he's saying, and the mother reacts as the way a mother plausibly would, which is to kind of beat on him because he's the bearer of this news and she can't take it. And it is, you know, with with all apologies to Eric Roomer, who I revere and once wrote an essay called In Defense of Talking Cinema, uh, you know, that we need we need a buzzer or a bell for this when I'm about to say things like, this is cinema. This is visual storytelling. It's kind of beautiful, it's restrained, it tells you everything you need to know in a way that can be only understood in the cinematic form. It's it's it's what I look for when one of the one of the five or six things I'm looking for when I go to the movies.
SPEAKER_01Man, I couldn't agree with you more about that. You know, I everything you said I agree with. And and uh to your point, this is just uh this is the essence of visual storytelling. It really is. You know, everything about this shot it's we it's a weird thing to say, but the shot almost is what makes it puts this film in the category of great. Because I just love the choice that he makes here. Um you know, you see the car show up because the lights are on the car. You see uh the turkeys, interestingly enough, almost like uh jump to attention as they see this person approaching. You see him walk through the turkeys as they sort of they part. And then you again, you said you see uh the mother played by Patricia Clarkson kind of hit him. Yeah. And you see him look up at the sky. And I it's just it's a gorgeous way to tell a story about an incredibly heartbreaking moment. Right.
SPEAKER_00And it's also a a long shot.
SPEAKER_01I don't want a close-up of her that her daughter is dead. And and I think a lot of modern filmmakers would have had him tell her and show a close-up on his face, a close-up on her face. Exactly. I just think this is such a more effective way to capture the sense of of heartbreak. Yeah. I don't know. I it it's I I I know we're dwelling on this quite a bit, but I just think it's such a brilliant moment, such a brilliant decision by a director to film the shot in this way.
SPEAKER_00And and up to that point in the film, it's also I don't know what minute it is, but it's it's probably around minute 17, minute 18. The whole thing has been really beautiful and and visually it it's visual storytelling, even the earlier scenes as well. I I'm really impressed with all of that work.
SPEAKER_01Right. So after this this scene, uh you see um Nicholson sitting down with uh Patricia Clarkson, with Michael Keith, the father, and talking about what has happened. And in this scene, Patricia Clarkson, who's wonderful, and she's wonderful in really everything, but she's particularly good in this in this brief, very briefly cameo performance. She asks him to make a promise that he is going to solve the murder of her daughter.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Which is what is I think I think popularly understood to be the pledge. It is the pledge that Nicholson makes to her to solve the crime. Okay. So a couple pro now this is a question we're we we should get to get to now. Is that the essence of the film? Is that what drives his character, Jerry Black, to solve this murder?
SPEAKER_00Well, you and I have a slight or even a moderate disagreement on this. So I want to make the case for the fact that at least for the first 90 minutes of the the picture, it is. They we really dwell on this. I mean, we've alighted over a couple of things, one of which is that this is a deeply religious family. Yes. And so we she doesn't just pledge, she doubles down on this pledge. She asks him, Will he do it? You know, says, Do you swear? And he says yes, and then she like pulls out a Bible or something. She wants him to swear like on the sacredness of his own soul. So the movie dwells on the pledge, which I mean which to me means that the movie takes the pledge seriously. Um again, Nicholson's character late in the film devolves uh into a state that cannot be explained by the pledge, but I'm inclined to take the pledge seriously. And while we're in that scene, I want to double back and just talk to a heartbreaking moment in which the father wants to go see the daughter's body and Nicholson discourages him from doing so, and the father gets angry saying, Why, why shouldn't I go see my daughter? And Nicholson's line and his line read is so beautiful, in which he says something very close to because we barely dared to look ourselves, referring to what had happened to the child. And it's and again, for me that reinforces that this is no no run-of-the-mill crime, that that that Nicholson is personally affected by the crime, and therefore had a, you know, yes, once a cop or always a cop, but he wants he wants this murder solved. And then you have an extended scene, an extended moment in which you get the the pledge and the doubling down on the pledge and the invocation of religion that we're told later that Nicholson isn't really a religious man. But nevertheless, that family to them, that kind of pledge, I think is is very serious business. So I I'm going that's just me making the case for the pledge having significance. And it's the title of the movie.
SPEAKER_01And so no, I know. And so I know that we have spent a lot of time on this, but I think it's really important. I think it does, it's it's the it's the key tension point in this film. Because as the film goes along, Nicholson becomes obsessed with Sloven's crime. And uh we see a um uh a uh uh individual is arrested, played by BC Del Toro. He's Native American, he is uh developmentally disabled. Yes. Um he is coaxed into a confession uh to confessing to this rape and murder of this little girl. Um he is charged and then he is brought to a holding cell where he steals a gun from a police officer and shoots himself in the head and kills himself. And that is seen as the as the end of the crime. He did it, crime solved. And of course, Jerry Black is not convinced. Now, I I bring this up again because there's a couple things that happen in that scene with Pritchard Clarkson that I think are really important. One thing about about Jerry is that he is a guy who's a a master detective. And in fact, I'm gonna stop back a second and say this movie is based on a book called The Pledge, uh, written by uh Friedrich Dornmott, in which it is actually supposed to be sort of a critique of detective fiction. And and in which it the story is told by a colleague of a character who is played by Nicholson in the film, um, who explains kind of what happens, and it sort of follows the same kind of plot, but it's really a story about how a crime, you know, you can be a tr truly great police detective, and you know, so things like chance and coincidence uh often are the things that actually help solve a crime or can help you prevent you from solving a crime. So it's much more about like the genre of detective to fiction, it's much more about like the craft of investigating crimes that it is about what the what this film is actually focused on, which is sort of a psychological character study. I bring this up because in the book, the idea is the detective is a master detective, or at least somebody who is very skilled at it. And Nicholson is very skilled at being a detective, very skilled at investigating these kind of crimes, yet he does something no detective would ever do, which is pledge to solve a crime, right? Detectives are trained not to do this. They don't ever tell the victim, I'm going to catch the killer. That's the last thing you do, right? Because it puts enormous pressure on you and also gives the the family a sense of of uh expectations that couldn't that may not be realized. And so I I found that a strange decision on his part to do that. And I think what drives it is that he is not pledging to solve the crime because he wants to give this woman peace. He doesn't want to quit his job and retire. He wants to have a purpose. And that is what drives him this entire movie, is to have a purpose and to not have to retire, is to not have to no longer be a person who solves murders.
SPEAKER_00I think it's true that he doesn't want to retire, but for me, that raises the musical question that the film does not answer, which is so why does he retire? But in terms of the pledge qua pledge, she really puts him on the spot there. I mean, he's, you know, a hardened detective, but he's obviously somewhat traumatized by the murder itself. And then he has the scene with the family, and then he's back at the house with the family, and she confronts him with this. And yes, it would have been proper procedure to say, I'm sorry, ma'am, but we're not allowed to make such pledges in the detective game. Uh but, you know, in that moment, at that space, with her confrontation, given what has transpired, I I understand him breaking with protocol and doing it in that case. You know what, though, I'm gonna put I'm gonna throw it back at you.
SPEAKER_01You pointed out the lovely moment when he tells the father, don't go see your daughter. Yes. Right? That is the right procedure. That is the right thing to do. Right. So he is, he is in that sense going by the book.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01And yet he doesn't when she asks, he could have said to her, I, you know, I can't make that pledge to you, I can't make that promise to you. I think he makes the promise because he wants to be wedded to having to solve this crime. That's how I see it.
SPEAKER_00I can agree with that, but I I think both acts are warm. When he tells the dad not to go see the daughter, that is an act of kindness. If he told the mom, sorry, I can't make that pledge, that would have been stone cold.
SPEAKER_01It would have, but it also would have been the appropriate thing for him to do. Sure. And so I I am I I that's a fair is a fair point, but something I'll just I'll just comment on because give you a little sort of see how the sausage is made. Uh we were talking about this last night, actually, and and you you said to me you wanted some some kind of gesture on the part of the movie that suggested that um that Nicholson was more focused on not retiring and keeping his job than he was on this pledge. And you know, I said, well, what more gesture do you need than him literally leaving his retirement party to go to a crime scene? And that's what he does. I mean, I don't know why he retires. I assume he's he's probably retirement age, or I assume he maybe got pushed out of the job. But um, you know, it's clear he doesn't want to retire.
SPEAKER_00Everyone's dancing in his Go ahead, Zachary. For me, I just need a line mumbled, even mumbled under his breath. For example, mumbled under his breath, we learned that he was twice married and twice divorced. And that's like a throwaway line, and we pick up on that barely. And I want him in the in the police precinct to say something about a mandatory retirement age or being forced onto a desk job. Not a big, you know, scene-chewing thing, just some casual reference to the fact that had he his druthers, he would still be on the job, and yet he's kind of being nudged into retirement. We have, we, I maybe it's just me needing more hand holding, but I saw nothing in the first time.
SPEAKER_01This is very unusual for you, John.
SPEAKER_00You have this desire to have your hand held like this. I'm surprised. Just a broken twig or a bent blade of grass. Some some more some more clear hint that this is what was going on. Interesting.
SPEAKER_01Now, I I didn't need it, and I it's interesting this this disagreement because to me, uh to me, there's no question that the pledge he makes to Patricia Clarkson is not why he's doing this. Like I I am com convinced a hundred percent that what that the pledge is an excuse. The pledge is his way to justify what he's doing. When in reality, what and I think, look, I think the story is told in all of the moments leading up to the the pledge, right? The the the the the him looking around his office and seeing all these pictures of himself. Um the uh um his his attitude, his or his demeanor at this going away party. I think all of it and the fact that he leaves the party, the fact that he volunteers to give the notification. He doesn't have to give the notification. Aaron Eckert could have given the notification. He chooses to do it. I I think he is looking for an excuse not to leave. And this is what provides it for him.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell, I guess the basis of our disagreement is really that I do not find these competing explanations. I find these overlapping explanations. So I think it's definitely true. True that he would much rather spend his time investigating a murder than going fishing. I think the movie makes that very, very clear. But at the same time, I do think the movie dwells on the pledge, and there are a couple of callbacks, like when he's sitting in the diner and he sees the family in the distance, and there's another parade in which he sees the little boy who discovered the body in the distance. These are callbacks. These are reminders to him of that crime and of, and I think of the commitment that he made to them. But I don't see them as I don't see them as opposite. You have to choose one. I think I think both can be true. You know, maybe.
SPEAKER_01That's interesting. But I I think there's one way to read this film, which is that his obsession with solving this murder, obsession with being feeling like he's needed, and not needed. You know, he is needed as the film goes along by Robin White's character and his and her daughter, but that isn't enough for him. He needs to be needed in the sense of solving something, in the sense of being of service, and not like on that individual level to this to this little girl. He needs something bigger than that, I think. And so that's why he puts the little girl at risk. He ultimately is so focused on his own obsessions that I think that that clouds him to everything else around him in his life and everything else and makes him make decisions that ultimately harm people he should care about.
SPEAKER_00Well, we'll get to those decisions, I think, a little further down the road because I'm I'm more ambivalent. I know he's viewed that way, but I'm I'm not sure I see it in exactly the same way with regard to putting people in danger.
SPEAKER_01Okay, let's get to that then. Okay, so all right, so mentioned earlier Benichi Del Toro kills himself. Um Nicholson it leaves the next day to go on his trip. He's at the airport, he decides not to go, he comes back, he begins to investigate this crime. Yes. He begins to look into other murders that happened in the area. He finds three other murders of little girls similar to the MO of this murder of this little girl. Um and he goes to you know his old police precinct to with Sam Shepherd played his his captain played by Sam Shepherd in a small role, but as we've discussed earlier in this podcast, Sam Shepard always good. Uh Aaron Eckhart is in the scene as well, and he tries to sort of explain why he thinks this is uh a serial killer. He show he shows a picture that this little girl had drawn as I think eight-year-old girl had drawn of somebody she calls the wizard, had called had called the wizard, and he believes this is indication that there's this murder out there. Uh Sam Shepherd and Aaron Eckhart think that Jerry is losing his mind completely, and they basically shoe him away.
SPEAKER_00And we have an interesting structural tone shift in the movie. I do want to say that airport scene, again, nice visual storytelling. It's a small piece of business. And I think we've gotten past that, but I I wanted to dwell a little bit more on the interrogation of Benice La Torah, but let's drop that just for a minute. Oh, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01Let's mention the let's mention interrogation to be something. That's an important scene, actually. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I just thought it, you know, Penn didn't direct these films, but Penn's interest in the abuse of power by law enforcement is something that weaves its way through his career. His dad, Leo Penn, a director, was blacklisted. That possibly informed part of that. But if you look at two of his most famous roles, Dead Man Walking and Mystic River, uh, directed by Clint Eastwood, they both have to do with the intersection of people and the criminal justice system, and of course, the steep steepedness of moral ambiguity in that. And the behavior of the police uh in this interrogation, you know, they want this crime solved. That's the urgency of the pressure, and they have this a good circumstantial case to make against this person who is uh, you know, as you said, developmentally disabled. And it's it's it's it's just it lingers on that aspect of it. And again, all so economical. Benizio del Toro, when he steals the gun and ultimately ends up killing himself with it. Um, we have the Keystone cops set up. So it's not shocking that one of those cops could actually have his gun removed by a suspect. The whole thing, I think, again, packs a lot of interesting information, concepts, and concerns, all in the service of the story that we're being told. And so again, just so nicely done.
SPEAKER_01It is well done. And and again, the contrast between Aaron Eckhart is the one who conducts the interrogation of Misha del Toro, he talks him into uh admitting the crime. I cannot imagine in any world where that interrogation would hold up in a court of law, just for the record. Um and you know, Nicholson's watching it on sort of closed circuit TV, and he is he is so offended by the way this this is going, and he doesn't believe any of it. And again, this gets to my point earlier. This is a by the book detective. He's a good detective, and he's interested in solving the crime, finding out who actually did it, not just not just getting a win. And you see the end of when the interrogation Eckhart looks at the camera and does this sort of you know cheering that he that he got the guy to admit what he had done is such a contrast, I think, that the you know, it's a generational contrast almost between the detective who cares more about just getting a confession than actually solving the crime. Um again, Bicher Dotoro kills himself. And we we so just as fast forward a second here, we go, you know, as I mentioned earlier, Jerry tries to figure out what actually happens. He's convinced that there's a serial killer, doesn't go on his vacation, and instead he decides to um uh drive sort of around the area where these crimes have been committed, and he finds somewhere in the middle of where these three murders have committed that he that he these earlier crimes, a gas station owned by Harry Dean Stanton, and he buys the gas station. Um and it's apparent that he pays well uh over market rate for the gas station. He pays m way more than he should have. Yeah. Because he thinks that by working at a gas station, owning gas stations, he will come across the killer. And he believes the killer has this like black station wagon, and he thinks he will see it, and that will allow him to solve the murder.
SPEAKER_00Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yeah, the gas station is kind of at the epicenter of this triangle that he's mapped out, which is where all the crimes take place. And so it's he thinks it's extremely well located, and the gas station is a good place where you can keep an eye on the black cars coming and going. But as I said, it also you mentioned Harry Dean, who has a very it's a very short scene with him. But if I I don't think this is a criticism of the movie, but the middle hour of this movie is a series of Jack having one-on-one scenes with the great actors of our time. And you know, each one of them almost stand alone. And in that sense, it is a little kind of theatrical. They're all excellent, uh, but they're it it it is serial in that way, not serial killer, but kind of serial one-on-one scenes of great acting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, by the way, I think we've I think Carrie Dean Stan has been in more films that we've discussed this podcast than possibly any other actor. That is very possible. He's he was in Tulane Blacktop. Um what else was he in? He was in Straight Time. Straight Time. Yeah, he's in a lot of films. But he tends to show up. He does show up a lot. He does a lot, a lot of these sort of performances, those sort of small performances. Um so you mentioned all these sort of cameos, and there's really three of them that I think stand out. Uh there is Helen Mirin, who is a psychiatrist who Nicholson meets with and trying to understand um maybe the psychology of the murderer, or trying to understand sort of to get inside the head of of the serial killer. There's um Vanessa Redgrave, who plays the little girl who's killed her grandmother who gave piano lessons. I think this scene, by the way, I think her performance is just so wonderful. And she delivers it with such pathos and such um uh uh sense of tragedy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's almost like she's a really great actor.
SPEAKER_01It's almost like she's a really great actor, exactly. And then there's Mickey Rourke, uh, who delivers a very small performance as the father of another child who was killed and who was still missing.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um, this was a maybe a two-minute scene. He is fantastic. And I I read somewhere this this scene or this performance kind of helped revitalize his career. Um he, you know, he was a wonderful actor from the early 90s, did bar flies, some other things, kind of fell off, drugs and alcohol problems. Then he then later he did the rest of it, which is I think a wonderful movie. But he is great in that little moment. And you're right, these are little sort of small cameo performances. I mean, this is what happens when you're Sean Penn and you're a and you're a very well-established actor. You can call in a lot of favors. Yeah. And to get Helen Mirrin, you know, to do this like what's two-minute role of Vanessa Redgrave to do it's a very short performance. I mean, you're not gonna get that. Many other directors are gonna be able to get that, but Penn is able to pull these people in.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and I want to say something about almost each and every one of them. First, the the Mickey Rourke scene. Uh again, I'm gonna get to this eventually, but that character could have stepped out of the crossing guard. I mean, that is the most crossing guard character in this entire movie. And so I do think these movies are linked in many ways.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I agree. I agree. That's a actually that's a good observation because in Crossing Guard, it's about a story about a man who loses his daughter. Um she's killed a drunk driving accident, but you know, uh obviously it's about the pain that he's going through having to deal with with the loss of a child.
SPEAKER_00Um And there's also Lois Smith uh makes a small role. She is I for uh I'm suddenly blanking on what character she plays, but he has a one-on-one with her, and the reason why this is so special is of course she played Jack Nicholson's sister in five easy pieces. And so just to see her enter the building and have her a one-on-one, or maybe there's two scenes, two short scenes with her and Jack, uh is is a joy, and she's also, of course, wonderful. You mentioned how great Redgrave was, but I want to dwell on the Helen Mirren scene. I know that's not your favorite, but it is my favorite, and it's really because I think she turns the tables on him a bit, in that he wants to draw on her expertise as a psychiatrist to analyze the drawing and, you know, figure out if perhaps there is credibility to his theory that there's another serial killer. And then after she does that, after kind of putting up with his questions for a while, she starts asking him questions, and they're very pointed questions. Have you always been a chain smoker? Are you sexually active? I mean, here is where we get into gnawing and gnawing at Nicholson's own psyche and closer to your interpretation of the movie as less about a pledge and more about his obsessiveness.
SPEAKER_01Well, this is the thing. I mean, we agree that his character, this movie is about his obsessiveness. This is a character study. This is about Nicholson's almost like descent into madness in an effort to solve this crime. I mean, he buys a freaking this is his he's in retirement. Yeah. He is retired. He buys a gas station. And not a nice gas station. And not a nice gas station. He pays too much money for it. It's not near where he lived. It's it's not it's within range, but it's not like the town where he lived as a detective. Okay. And he does this for the sole purpose of finding this killer. Yes. I mean, that is uh driven more by a pledge he gave to a mother. This is somebody who who who has to be proven right, who has to solve the crime, who has to feel needed. Now, in this town where he's living, he meets Robin um Wright Penn, who's of course married to Sean Penn. Uh, she has a little girl named Chrissy. Uh she is uh a single mom and uh her ex-husband is abusive. At some point, she comes to his gas station, and uh after being attacked by her ex-husband, he asks her to come live with them at this at the gas station where he's living, bring the daughter. She does. And you see this kind of like idyllic, you know, kind of life the three of these had. He becomes a sort of surrogate father for the little girl. He becomes in romantically involved with Robin uh Wright Penn. And you sort of see him, maybe he's trying to actually, I don't know, have some sort of normal life. But of course, the the desire to solve the crime comes in, comes in and he begins to see Chrissy as as a way he can use her as bait to help sort of solve his crime. At least that's how I saw it. I'm curious if you had the same sort of view of it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I did not. Uh, and I know that this is a uh reputable read of the film. I found enormous sincerity in the development of that relationship, especially when he invites her to live in the house. I think that is fully sincere. I think his relationship with the girl and with Robin Wright develops organically. I think it's important that it is Wright who initiates their physical relationship. And there are so many quiet and beautiful moments uh between Jack and uh Chrissy that I don't think that he has this in mind. There's only one hint of this at all, is when they're at the flea market and the little girl is they're picking out maybe dresses for the little girl, and she does get her eyes uh fixed on a red dress, which apparently the serial killer is fond of, and and he does have this line which he says that it it it's not what she usually wears, but it is her color or something like that. But I really, I really bought into fully the sincerity of his love for both of these characters.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna push back. There's a second thing that he does that's really, really important. He builds a swing set for this little girl. And he puts it in the front of the gas station, not in the back, in the front. And then Robin Roy says to him, why are we putting it in the front of the gas station where everyone can see? Why didn't you put it in the back? And he says, Well, that we can see it from the the the windows of the gas station, but I don't believe that. I don't think anyone believes that. He wants the the the the the playground in the front, swing set in the front, because he thinks it'll attract the serial killer.
SPEAKER_00So that is that is eminently readable. Uh I and I think it's I think it's the uh an accurate and majority view. I mean, maybe I'm naive, but I if he was worried about the girl sincerely, the line he gives about if you put her out of sight, you know, she might be in more danger uh from a serial killer. He doesn't invoke the serial killer concept to her. But you can't see where it's where she is or what she's doing. She could she's more easily snatchable from the backyard than the front.
SPEAKER_01I uh yes, maybe, but she's but it's by being in the front, it's more likely to attract the serial killers to drive by to see her, to want to talk to her, to communicate with her. Because in the in the the original original murder, right, the the little girl had come to be friends or friendly with this person named the wizard, and the wizard given her treats. And so they developed a relationship before he uh he murdered her. So I think I I it's weird. I to me it's it's not even a question, that's what he's doing. He's trying to he's trying to attract the serial killer to his gas station.
SPEAKER_00I think that's right. Uh I and again, and I think that that's I don't have good ammo to come back and say that's wrong, but I do feel his sincere love for that child is significant. And when we get into, you know, the the late sequence, there's one person who he has his eye on as the suspect, and he becomes extremely, we're getting a little ahead of ourselves, he becomes extremely agitated when he fears that she might be in danger and and behaves in a a a you know really over-the-top way to try and correct that what would have been this grievous error on his part. I really think he cares about that girl intensely and not simply as as as fate to lure the bad guy. And by the way, in the flea market, she goes missing. And again, the cinematic storytelling here, maybe they're just throwing, you know, movie nerds a bone, but she has a balloon and then she loses the balloon and the child is missing and the balloon is floating in the air. Trevor Burrus So this is you know, just a tip of the hat to the child murderer in Fritz Lang's M from 1930, in which we have that image of the child with the balloon, and the balloon is then seen floating, and we know that that child is now dead. Fortunately, this child is just has just wandered off in the flea market and is safe. Right. But but the it's that danger. Uh and I think that yeah, I don't know. I'm I know I'm in the a thin minority here in thinking that there is much, much more substance to his relationship with both of them than than the the read of the film generally decides.
SPEAKER_01I think you I don't disagree really with your take here. I mean, I think that I think it's very fair to s to say that he ha has developed a real affection for the girl as not I mean affection as a fa as a father and the affection for Roberoy Penn. But I'm not sure that's mutually exclusive. I don't I think that can be true, and I think he can also be obsessed with solving the crime. I mean, I do think there is a read of this film where the in he he goes out of his way to develop a rapport with the girl so that she will tell him about her interactions with this person that he thinks is a serial killer. I mean, I think that is one way you could read it. And it is interesting that she tells him about meeting with this person and he doesn't tell her mother. He doesn't mention any of this to her. I mean, he keeps it a secret. I mean it's it's well, he doesn't keep it a full secret.
SPEAKER_00I mean he arranges to have 42 cops surround the Rendezvous. Yeah, from Robin Wright, yes. He keeps it a secret from the mom. Yes. But he but you're talking about putting the child in danger. That child is surrounded by, you know, kind of 50 cops with high-powered rifles.
SPEAKER_01But there's no putting her in danger, right. I mean, he's using her as bait, though. He's using her as bait. And so I think you could argue that and I uh maybe I didn't make this maybe it wasn't clear about this. I think what he's doing is developing a rapport with her so that she will she will um tell him about these interactions with the wizard, with this potential serial killer. He wants to develop a trust with her so that she he can then use her as bait, which he does at the end of the film. And he doesn't tell this to her mother.
SPEAKER_00I may be a sentimental sucker, but you show me three scenes of him reading stories to her in bed, and I just I am unable to code those as ruthlessly instrumental. You know, that's totally fair.
SPEAKER_01And like I said, I think it's I as I said a second ago, I think it's one way to read what happens. I think that really what's going on here is that he is, I think you're actually I kind of lean more to your interpretation that he um has developed this this relationship with the child and the mother, and yet his desire to prove himself correct about the serial killer, that that motivation is simply too powerful for him. And it overwhelms, you know, his happiness, and that maybe is an or is I should say overwhelm this sort of idyllic domestic life that he has created. And that might explain why he's twice divorced, right? I you know, that he his job and his need for this kind of validation takes precedent over his you know relationships, right?
SPEAKER_00And that certainly comes true through in the end where he just totally goes off. Right. But even like, look, opening scene, right?
SPEAKER_01He's in, he's in, he's he's ice fishing by himself. He drives to the party by himself. At the party, we see a, as I mentioned this earlier, a very important scene where everyone's dancing, having a good time, interacting with each other. He's alone. He doesn't seem to really even have a close relationship among his colleagues. Every interaction at that party is people congratulating him and patting him on the back and then moving on. There's no sort of longer conversation he has with somebody, no friend that he seems to have. He he every relationship that he has with these people is like sort of professional. And and you could argue there's lots of reasons why that might be, but one way to look at it is that he is his job has is his life, his need for to serve, to be needed. That is his life. And that ultimately overwhelms this apparent happiness that he has achieved with Robin Penwright and her daughter.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think, again, I don't think I'm disagreeing with you on that. I just prefer the my own reading of it is that he loses it more toward the end and that the development of his relationship with both Wright and with Chrissy uh is generous and sincere and develops and and it it makes it all the more tragic that he loves.
SPEAKER_01I think it's consistent with what I just said. I think I think we're sort of on the same page here. Um so as time goes along, this individual played by um the wonderful actor Tom Noonan, he uh he comes in contact with Chrissy, he gives her little um uh gifts. Uh he is uh uh a minister, he is trying to get her to, I guess, you know, accept Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior and what have you. Um and he is, we assume, yeah, the killer.
SPEAKER_00Yes, as they say on NYPD Blue, I like him for the serial killer. I I like him for the serial killer, but we will get to that in a second because it is that's an important, there's an important point here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So she uh tells Jerry that she's supposed to meet with this wizard at a park. And Jerry then calls those old colleagues. This is the one thing in the film that I found I didn't buy. He calls Aaron Eckhart, his old buddies at the police department to come and to sort of surround this little girl for what they think is his meeting with the serial killer. And then you got about like, you know, six or seven SWAT uh agents around with sniper rifles.
SPEAKER_00Walkie talkie is everything. Walkie talkie all the things.
SPEAKER_01I didn't I didn't really buy that they that they would have agreed to do this after they basically viewed him as a drunk and a crazy person, just a couple of me, you know, an hour earlier in the film. Um but they do, and then of course, you know, she's there with her dolls and she's waiting for this person to show up and he doesn't show up. Um and The SWAT team leaves. And that's when you certainly see Jerry begin to lose his mind. Right. Right. I mean, really kind of go through like a psychotic break. Yeah. He first he sort of he criticized the SWAT team because they're in the wrong location. Yeah. Which doesn't really make a lot of sense. And you can see the SWAT team's like, what are you talking about? We're all we're surrounded here. And he he the obsession has like taken over him. And I'm curious what you thought about that. Did that seem discordant? Like, did you buy that that evolution of his character into sort of almost like psychosis?
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's tricky. Right. There for me, it's a discontinuity. And it comes up in a in that final or that near-final scene that I know you love so much when uh Robin Wright confronts him with what's happened, and and she basically accuses him of the interpretation of the movie that that I don't share, which is that the he had been using them from the very start, and she's furious with him, and he is unable to articulate any defense of what he's done because he's gone. Right? If it was me, I would have said, you know, no, that's that's not what happened. You're missing, you're misunderstanding what's happening here. And he is almost mute in his response and and stupefied. And that's when you know that whatever there was of him, there no longer is. And so it's it's a devastating scene for me uh for for many reasons, but also because since I believed in his kindness and I believed in his love for them, when she comes and lays him out in that way, uh, and he is unable to even articulate the most basic defense of his behavior, and it it leaves her thinking that she's rushed. Yes. Yes. And that's heartbreaking to me.
SPEAKER_01Also, by the way, this one this is this this is this is a sort of a minor point, but she she tells she's yelling with and Nicholson. She tells Chrissy to get in the car, uh, and then and then she so she can't see Chrissy. I'm like, you know, that's an odd choice. Yeah. Right? She has to even let her take her dolls, take her bike. She but she's like, but go to the car by yourself where I can't see you for a minute while uh there might be a serial killer coming while I argue with with you know with with Jerry here. Odd decision on her part. I mean, I love that scene, but I I this is the this is maybe what holds me back to me great for me, is that the uh his full break. I don't know that I uh it feels almost almost a little bit trite for him to go into this kind of psychotic mode. Like he can't, you're right, you can't articulate to what he's doing. He can't explain it. Like you do see him sort of begin to lose his mind. I think a couple scenes before this where he thinks that she's that she goes with this this guy played by Tom Noonan to the church, and he thinks that he has that that Noonan has killed her or is gonna kill her. He drives there obsessively, he drives his car, he pulls his gun, he has his gun out, he gets, he runs into the church and everyone's like, What's this guy doing here? Right? I mean, it felt over the top. I know it's a setup or comes at the end, but it kind of came a little bit, for me at least, uh maybe out of left field, or I didn't totally feel as organic for the film.
SPEAKER_00Well, it does show, you know, his descent into kind of obsessiveness, but also delusions, right? And again, I think it speaks to his sincere love for the child because out of his eyeshot, she's taken off with this guy that he thinks is the serial killer. He has a kind of a vision in his mind of her death. And when he drives there, he doesn't just drive there, he off-roads, right? There's some cattle that that blocks the road, and so he just drives through some fences like he doesn't have a vision of her death.
SPEAKER_01He has a vision of Noonan, you know, exulting in what he has done. Right? That's what he sees in his mind. He sees the blood, he sees Noonan. So again, it speaks the idea that this person's gonna go could get away with this crime because because Nicholson didn't stop him. He seems more pro troubled by this person killing somebody again than he is about the person who he's going to be killing, which is Chrissy. Maybe that's too I'm looking at it too closely, but that's kind of how I saw that as well.
SPEAKER_00I just took it as envisioning his worst nightmare.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's possible too. Trevor Burrus, Jr. And lingering on a dead, bloody child is in my bag anyway, so I'm I wasn't upset that instead he showed us kind of the bloodstained walls of the church. Right.
SPEAKER_01And I get that, but I do but they of course they do show uh this is interesting you bring this up because the movie doesn't shy away from showing uh dead children. Right. I mean, it's two things I want to mention. First is the scene uh when you see her, you do see her the the original murder, you see her lying bloodied on the ground. But then later in the film, and I think that's really interesting, he's looking at at photographs. Yeah. Um and they sh and I was very surprised by this. He actually sees the photographs of these dead children. Yeah. I feel like that's not they I did that didn't need to be in there. Right. And it was. And in fact, in one scene, he I visits this detective in another town where the m where this child child had been murdered. He steals the photo.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_01And we see him with the photo in the he's driving it when he drives this to visit Mickey Rourke, he has a picture on his front seat. It's not of Mickey Rourke's child, but it's of the child. So in other words, he is not sh we don't shy away from showing dead children and bloody children, children who have been who have been harmed. He doesn't in that scene at the church.
SPEAKER_00So two quick points. One is the scene where he gets the photo from that detective in I think it's in Monash County or something. Yeah, Monash County. That's another small piece of business about the ambiguity, the ambiguity of Penn's attitudes about law enforcement, because that guy, that guy is perhaps the scariest guy in the whole movie. I mean, not a joke. He's a cop, not a serial killer. Right. Right. So I don't know who that actor is. He's wonderful in that little performance, actually. Yeah. Yeah. He is. He's creeped me out. Uh 100%. 100%. But the other is I I'm more with you on the photos than than the first dead child. I thought the they they did a decent job of showing only what they needed to show with the first dead child. The discovery of the body, we see the horror on the boy's face, and then he runs away. And they that could have easily given us a close-up shot of the dead girl. And they do when they do show her, they to some extent they have to show us something. And I thought it was it didn't bother me. Where it was the photos that he collects. The photos are worse. Are worse. Right, exactly. Worse and more graphic. Even though there are still photos, it that seemed gratuitous, yes. I agree with you.
SPEAKER_01And I and it and I remember when I was watching it, it almost it stayed there's a shot of a little girl on a like a med medical examiner's table. Anyway, and it really stays on that shot for longer than I think is absolutely necessary. Yes. And again, I think there is I don't know. I did I did find it interesting that it does that, but in this imagined death scene, he does you don't imagine Chris. Maybe you maybe depend the decision's like you come to know this child. Yeah. Right? You don't want to see this child in in harm's way or harmed or hurt. I I get that. I get it. Um anyway, so so we get to the end of the film, which is an interesting thing happens here because as Eckhart and the SWAT team are driving away, they come across this burned-out vehicle that looks like it's a station wagon that Jerry had been obsessed with. And um we are led to assume that this is Noonan, the the the priest, it's his it's his character, and he had got in a car accident, hit by a truck, and he had he had died in this horrible fire. And the implication is that Jerry was right, that he had actually solved the murder, and this person actually was the killer, and he just didn't he never knew that he had actually figured out that he was correct.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean that's that's definitely the case. Well that guy in the black car who burned to death is the serial killer, and he was going to meet her and serial kill her, but he had this hot catastrophic car accident, and that's why he didn't show. But here's the important part.
SPEAKER_01I read this uh article about this. So Tom Noonan, who plays the sh the killer, who plays, I'm sorry, the priest, he says there's another guy who's in a Mercedes that gets burnt at the end, and people tell me that I look like the guy in the Mercedes. That's not me. It's not him.
SPEAKER_00I'm the I'm the nice guy in that movie, at least in the script. No, no, that's absolutely correct. The the religious guy, Tom Noonan, he is not the serial killer. How do you know that? Because it's a different guy that she met. We see him, she meeting him in a couple of encounters, Tom Noonan, but then she reports back to Jack Nicholson about this other guy, and he what was it? What did he give what gifts did he give? These little porcupine like chocolates or something. Yeah, the same candies that he gave to the other girl that he killed. I don't know the little porcupine um symbol on the car that's burnt to a busk.
SPEAKER_01But I think I think the assumption is that that is actually Tom Newton, but it's not Oh, I I never thought that was Tom Newton.
SPEAKER_00That's interesting.
SPEAKER_01You never thought that.
SPEAKER_00No, I think that was the big head fake of the movie because it it's so easy for us to think it's him, and we don't like him, you know, at all, but it's it's uh it it it's the it's this other guy. But this other guy, he's the guy. I mean, when we see Tom Noonan interacting with the girl, Chrissy, he does not do all the stuff that old serial killer did with the other girl. But this guy did. He used the same language, he was the same presence, he was the same treats, he was the same arrangements, and Nicholson's character recognizes this. And again, I don't think he's excited that he's has bait. I think he's totally freaked out in that scene. And that's why he goes and runs and tells his colleagues about it. And he has a pretty decent set of evidence to say, you know, basically, holy shit, uh, this guy is following exactly the same pattern and script. And you guys, and and it is a stretch perhaps, but based on his the combination of his long-standing reputation as a great cop, plus the new evidence that's able to bring them, basically about the porcupine stuff, I think it was compelling. And they did him this favor. Maybe it's a stretch.
SPEAKER_01But it's interesting that you you saw that because to me it always struck me that like that that it was trying to make the case that it was it was Noonan who was the sh who was the killer. I think that's how most people have interpreted the film.
SPEAKER_00I think it's a classic head fake that the killer isn't the killer the movie is is nudging you with.
SPEAKER_01I think the head fake is that is that is that he was right. Yes. There was a serial killer. Yes. And the serial killer, rather than show up at the at the location, actually dies in a horrible fire.
SPEAKER_00Yes. That's the more important thing anyway. Right? Now that's the more important thing anyway, that there is a serial killer. He put the pieces together, he was exactly right. If he wasn't in that car crash, he would have come to try and kill her. The cops would have been there, they would have caught him, everybody gets patted on the back, and everybody lives happily ever after. Right. But if he dies in the car crash, right. So you get these two gut punches, right? One is that Robin Wright rails on him, and he's unable to defend himself from it, and it shatters their entire relationship as she articulates, you know, that everything was so great, and you had to go do this crazy thing. And then gut punch number two is, and then the movie cuts away and says, Oh, and by the way, Jack was exactly right. Uh, you know, he had the whole thing together, but Jack will never know that, Wright will never know that, the cops will never know that. Instead, he's just this blithering idiot, you know, six or eight months later in front of his husked-out gas station that's no longer even functioning, muttering and drinking. It's again, I thought, you know, you think that that Gene Hackman at the end of the conversation is left, you know, bereft and and as a as loose as having lost everything. But that's not even close to this. This is this is out 70ing the 70s.
SPEAKER_01I I kind of agree. And I was struck by something interesting. Like I read about Roger, I read a lot of reviews of this, of this movie, people take on this film. And I came across like all of these a few podcasts, there aren't many podcasts about this, and a lot of articles and some reviews on places like Reddit and Letterboxd, where people just complained that the ending was so unsatisfying, right? We don't we don't know for sure who the killer is. Uh Jerry doesn't actually find the killer, doesn't know that he's right. And I I just I was like, what is wrong with you people? Like that's that's what makes the film great, is that you is that the gut punch of the movie is what is makes this so effective. That I I mean, to me at least, and because it really is story about Jack Nicholson's, like I said, descent into madness. It's a character study. The fact that he doesn't doesn't know that he's correct is almost to me irrelevant. It's not about that. It's about him, how his obsessions overwhelm him and overtake him.
SPEAKER_00I agree, but for me, it me of all people, it was just a little rough in emotionally speaking, in that the classic ending of a 70s film is the male protagonist lost and alone. Okay. And so that's that's what you have in this movie as well. But at least most of the more 70s characters who end the movies defeated, lost and alone. Even think about Jack at the end of Chinatown, at least he knows what happens.
unknownRight?
SPEAKER_01See, I don't think it I don't think it matters. I even if he had breaks his heart. It's heartbreaking. But even if he had solved the murder, and this gets to Maya's sort of critique of the film, or not critique, but my take on the film, even if he had solved the murder, I don't think it gives him peace. I think he would still find some other thing to obsess over, some other uh uh not maybe not a crime, but other issue to obsess over. That this is he's not able to really function without this desi need to to, as I said before, to be needed, but also to be engaged in in trying to solve some kind of mystery. I don't think that he can function I don't I don't think in other words, if he that he had found out, oh, in fact, the the wizard was, you know, I was right and he was killed, that he and Rob and Wright and Chrissy would have had some idyllic, you know, uh uh uh life together. I mean and I think that the the larger story here is that even if he's proven correct, he still has lost her. He still lost the child, he still lost his relationship because his because his obsession has gotten the better of him.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell So that's the bone I would have liked to have been thrown. I would have liked for him to have some discovery that he was right, and then I would like him to maybe go back to the house or something, and they can close the door in his face, right? He can lose it all. But I don't know, it's just too much for me that even he has no vindication of you know his own instinct on the crime.
SPEAKER_01You know, for the record, the book also ends the same way, where it you know he the main character sort of loses his mind, and then it comes out years later that in fact the the murderer had been killed on the way to to meet the little girl. Aaron Powell So it does come out years later. Aaron Powell Years later, but but he doesn't know that. He doesn't know that. Yeah. It's it's like well after the fact that that it's discovered that in fact this this was this is who this was. I mean the thing that's crazy is like no one even knows in the movie uh that this was this was the killer.
SPEAKER_00Yes, exactly. So again, I don't need to I I wouldn't have wanted a happy ending. Oh my god, if they had solved the case and ran off and lived happily ever after. As you say, as you as you would say, catastrophic. Yes. That's not what I was shopping for. I just, I just I I mean, this was just so, so dark, so down. I mean, even again, uh as someone who who shops in that aisle, even I was just a little taken aback. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01I to me it that's interesting. And maybe now the the uh uh the f the tables have been turned, but I actually you know the guy who who who who waxes poetic about Steven Spielberg's film, I I love I love the ending of this film more this more than you did. Yes. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00We know how Spielberg would have ended the film.
unknownExactly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they would have gotten back together and maybe have like a a kid together or something like at the end of the day. Definitely. Oh, I like that touch. Yeah. No, I look, I just to me it's the it's the it's the perfect way to end this film. And I was I was really sort of struck by how many reviews I read that just were like shitting all over this ending um and complaining, really, but it kind of complained that nothing was resolved. And the fact that nothing's resolved. I mean, to me, that's not what the movie is about. The movie's not about finding the wizard. That's that's not the movie. The movie's about it's a character study of Jack Nicholson. And I really think that the movie could only end in one place, which is with him maybe not maybe not losing his mind. That part I'm I'm not as I'm not as as fond of. I think but of him losing everything, of him being back to where he was at the beginning of the movie, of being alone and obsessed, like focused on his obsessions, yeah, which appear to be drinking, fishing, and um and searching for serial killers.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And I again, just for me, I I just needed a tiny bit more just for his character alone, even though, of course, I want him to be defeated, you know, bereft and alone at the end of the movie. But this is, again, I've said it before, it's still a much. However, before we go, I do we haven't really talked a lot about Robin Wright's performance here, which is exceptional. And so this is where I'm gonna take the opportunity to just make a reference, a quick reference to The Crossing Guard. And I want to mention, so that film I do think has some overlaps with this film. It does also involve the death of a child and the consequences of that for characters in the movie. And all I want to say about this movie is this the one of the principal characters in the film, David Morse, who is also outstanding, is the drunk driver who's responsible for the killing of the girl. And he's getting to know Robin Wright's character in that movie a little bit, and they have a little disagreement, and he comes to her apartment and he a- he says to her, You said that my guilt was too overwhelming, that you couldn't compete with it. And he says to her, What is guilt? And she answers him in a way that I think, again, is visual storytelling. We need a bell for this. Ding ding ding-ding, visual story. She puts on uh What a Man, What a Man, the recording by Sultan Tampa, and starts dancing to it. And she's you know, such a beautiful woman, and she's so full of joy, and she invites him to dance with her, uh, and he can't. And he understands, um, and he leaves. And I'm gonna go Ben Gazara on you. I I said once that I not a month goes by where I don't think about Ben Gazarra singing, I can't give you anything but love, baby, into that foam booth. I don't think a month goes by where I don't think of that scene of her dancing, and I find it uh emotionally overpowering. And again, just brilliant, brilliant. How do you express an idea in a pure visual form? There's the dialogue there is almost irrelevant. And it's I I find it stunning. And and the movie, The Crossing Guard more generally, which again brings the same people together, Penn and Wright and Nicholson, is much more uneven and I think is much less maturely directed. But there are four or five scenes in that particular movie that I think just soar, and that is my favorite one among them.
SPEAKER_01There's also a wonderful scene with Nicholson and Angelica Houston in the house. Absolutely. Oh my goodness. That is in some ways kind of a it's about the characters in the film, it's also about the actors who have been in a long-term relationship together. Um look, I think the big takeaway in this, I think this is really just that that all of these films have some inconsistencies. I Indian Runner is similar too, although I think there's like really amazing stuff in that film. But you know, I give Sean Penn a lot of credit. He is someone who understands sort of the power of visual storytelling. And as we said earlier, the thing the turkey scene, the scene that where the notification is just such a beautiful piece of visual storytelling. And there's many scenes like that, you know, in this film. I think of just wonderful kind of um where the where the where Sean Penn is sort of trusting the audience to understand kind of what he's trying to get across and not spoon feeding it to them. And maybe that's why people didn't like this movie as much. Uh I mean that may have something to do with it. Uh it's certainly want to be spoon-fed.
SPEAKER_00Yes, it's certainly not designed to be a crowd pleaser.
SPEAKER_01No, it's not. Um and uh you know, uh the thing the last thing I'll say, just you mentioned Robin Robin right pen. I want to just give a shout also to Hans Zimmer, who did the score for this movie. It's a wonderful score. I think it's just beautifully crafted. I think it really works well in this movie. Um captures sort of the melancholy of this movie. Um and I'll just finish up by saying I look, I this this is a movie I'm really glad we could talk about. There it's funny, there are not really many podcasts that have talked about this film in such depth. I looked and I couldn't find any. I did find one, I have to mention I did find one podcast in which they shuttle over the film. And one of the people on the podcast, I won't say what it is because I don't want to disparage them by name, but like they literally one of the takes from this one of the people on the podcast was that Jack Nicholson is not a great actor, uh, which almost gave me an aneurysm when I heard that. Um I think again, you know, this is a movie I'm glad we talked about because I think it is such a rich thematic film. I think it's a really challenging film. I think it's a 70s film that was made in 2001. I think it speaks to, you know, A, Sean Penn real talent as a director, but also Jack Nicholson's I mean, he's an extraordinary talent as an actor, but again, I think his willingness to challenge himself. And we talked about this earlier where I think we I think you made an observation that after Chinatown, he didn't challenge himself as much as he had in his early roles. And I what really impresses me about this movie, and you can look you can point to Clunker's later Nicholson's career. But this movie, and I mentioned again about Schmidt, speaks to an actor who late in his career could have just c you know, could have just uh mailed it in, but really is is is wedded to his art and wedded to making interesting and compelling films and to pushing himself as an artist.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I think that's true uh of all of the principal participants in this movie. And if we could get another trademark going for our podcast, I think this is a very fine exemplar of, quote, what we want from the movies.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. You know, it's it's not it's not gonna this is not for everybody. Some people I think will be turned off by the ending. I think some people will be turned off by, you know, it the pacing can be it it especially in the middle of me can be a little slow at times. But to me, this is just a great piece of filmmaking. And I'm and I'm so glad that we had a chance to talk about it. This is why I wanted to do this podcast in the beginning, talking about movies that that I love, movies that just have stuck with me, that I have been that have been in my head for for for months and years after I saw it, and this movie falls into that category.
SPEAKER_00That sounded like a killer ending to me. I thought you thought you were I thought you were just done right there. Um and on that note, I think we can finish up.
SPEAKER_01What do you think, Jonathan? Are we done? I think we're done. I think so. I think what they came to say. That wasn't a bad way to end it, I think, to be honest. All right. So uh thank you everyone for joining us today. Uh again, if you're enjoying the podcast, please uh leave a comment, uh, give us a thumbs up, buy us a cup of coffee, tell your friend, shout it out from the rooftops, and um we'll see you next week. Alrighty. Bye bye.